Monday, April 28, 2008

Police (1985)

Cahterine Breillat came up with the original idea, then co-wrote the script of Police with director Maurice Pialat in 1985. It stars Gérard Depardieu as a police detective torn between his professional code of honor and the demands of his heart when he finds himself romantically drawn to one of the suspects in his investigation of a drug smuggling syndicate (Sophie Marceau).

Police is available as a marvelous, 2-disc special edition in France from G.C.T.H.V. (that's Gaumont Columbia Tristar Home Video to you). Disc one features a beautiful anamorphic print of the film (in its original 1.66:1), "presented" (which means, I suppose, a video introduction) by Catherine Breillat. Then, on disc two, there's an interview with Breillat, a 35 minute documentary, deleted scenes, a featurette and some other stuff. What it does not feature, however, are English subtitles.

This is also available in the first volume (there's a volume 2 with other films) of a Maurice Pialat boxed set - it's 9 discs all told, including both discs of Police, which are the same as the ones sold separately.

There is no US DVD (or UK, or from anywhere else) so we English speakers are left to make do with the old, fullscreen VHS that was released by New Yorker video back in the 90's. You might as well track it down - you can find it cheap, and sadly, there are no better options for us until somebody ports that wonderful French set over - which I'm sure isn't about to happen anytime soon. There is now an English language special edition DVD (PAL, r2) of this which I wholly recommend.

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